Society & Demographics News and Discussions

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god I knew it

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Middle age is becoming a breaking point in the U.S.

February 1, 2026

Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s are reporting higher levels of loneliness and depression than people from earlier generations. They are also showing declines in memory and physical strength. These patterns are unusual when compared with other wealthy nations. In many peer countries, especially in Nordic Europe, measures of midlife health and well-being have improved rather than worsened.

To better understand why the United States stands out, psychologist Frank J. Infurna of Arizona State University and his colleagues analyzed survey data from 17 countries. Their goal was to explain why trends in U.S. midlife health differ so sharply from those seen elsewhere.

"The real midlife crisis in America isn't about lifestyle choices or sports cars. It's about juggling work, finances, family, and health amid weakening social supports," Infurna said. "The data make this clear."

The findings were published in Current Directions in Psychological Science and suggest clear directions for change at both the personal and societal levels.

One major factor separating the U.S. from Europe is public support for families. Since the early 2000s, European countries have steadily increased spending on family benefits. In contrast, spending in the United States has remained mostly unchanged. The U.S. lacks many common family policy programs found in Europe, including cash transfers for families with children, income support during parental leave, and subsidized childcare.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 062457.htm

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[Yuli Ban]

To the surprise of demographers, African fertility is falling

Last year The Economist posted “The world’s peak population may be smaller than expected: New evidence suggests Africa’s birth rates are falling fast.” I have previously cited this seminal article; its resonance amplifies as data accumulates:
[A] wealth of new data that suggest that Africa’s birth rate is falling far more quickly than expected. Though plenty of growth is still baked in, this could have a huge impact on Africa’s total population by 2100. Yet even the UN’s latest projections may not be keeping pace with the rapid decline in fertility rates (the average number of children that women are expected to have) that some striking recent studies show. Most remarkable is Nigeria, where a UN-backed survey in 2021 found the fertility rate had fallen to 4.6 from 5.8 just five years earlier. This figure seems to be broadly confirmed… by USAID… which found a fertility rate of 4.8 in 2021, down from 6.1 in 2010. “Something is happening,” muses Argentina Matavel of the UN Population Fund. If these findings are correct they would suggest that birth rates are falling at a similar pace to those in some parts of Asia, when that region saw its own population growth rates slow sharply in a process often known as a demographic transition. In 1972 the Club of Rome, a think-tank, published an influential book, “The Limits to Growth”, warning that consumption and population growth would lead to economic collapse. Now it says the population bomb may never go off: it reckons sub-Saharan Africa’s population may peak as soon as 2060, which is 40 years earlier than the UN’s projections.

It's something I've been saying for a decade now, that so many of these projects are based on nothing but basically the IMF wanting it to be truth, like taking out a loan you expect to be paid back
Fun fact, Nigeria is one of the largest countries in Africa by population

Right?

Well guess what: we don't actually know that for sure, and loads of anecdotal/circumstantial evidence suggests Nigeria might not be half as populated as the projections say
The last census was taken literally 20 years ago, in 2006. There are SOME methods of predicting population in the country, but even those do not suggest a population near the number the country purportedly has.

Subsaharan Africa is portrayed in media in two ways: one, as a source of continued growth for the next century providing a stable working population, and two, as an infested terrifyingly black dysgenic breeding hole that will overpopulate the white/Asian world

Former gets to watch their "future economic growth" evaporate; the racists in the latter get their wish. MMW, it will eventually be clear Africa won't come anywhere remotely close to the population estimates we keep giving it. Of course claiming a larger population bestows more monetary benefits, which is why India and China say theirs are so high, when many are beginning to suspect at least China has inflated their numbers.

This is literally a global trend. Global population growth is staggered, and I think it's more staggered than we're being told. Almost every country is seeing population growth collapse
But it's literally in our neoliberal financial interests to downplay or reverse this, because we need infinite growth. The nationalists are so riled by mass immigration because the corpos NEED more workers and consumers (and also depressing wages). The native populations in Europe aren't breeding nearly as much and largely they don't even have the excuse of being burnt out by overwork like America or Japan do; much of Europe has social-corporatist economies that give enormous family benefits and freedom to start families, and despite that, increasing wealth and healthcare improvements and women's rights still led to the same thing.
The migrants are coming from places that were, themselves, facing population stagnation which is often one of the things that fed to instability considering they are also often poor countries.

It's the same song everywhere, and the charade can't keep itself up forever

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[caltrek]

From Youth Bulges to Graying Societies: The Demographic Dynamics that are Upending the World
By John Rennie Short
March 31, 2026

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Government-shaking protests in Bangladesh, Iran, Nepal and Sri Lanka – to name a few – have all in recent years been linked to what demographers call a “youth bulge.” Meanwhile, the economic slowdown in China and ballooning public debt in the United States are in part due to the two powers’ aging populations. In contrast, recent economic growth in Brazil, India and Vietnam reflects a “demographic dividend” of the economically active.

Demographic trends are fueling some of the events reshaping the world. But what exactly are these age-related phenomena, and why are they having such an impact now? I explored these issues in depth in my 2024 book “Demography and the Making of the Modern World.”

Below is a rundown on some of the main demographic dynamics that are changing the world.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/from-youth ... ld-274276

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More UK deaths than births expected every year from now on

1 hour ago

Deaths are expected to outnumber births in the UK every year from 2026, according to projections from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The UK population is now expected to grow at a slower rate than previously thought, reaching 71 million by 2034, owing to a sharp fall in migration.

Declining fertility rates also mean the number of children in the UK is expected to fall in the next decade while pensioners are expected to grow faster than working age adults.

Previous projections suggested the population would continue to grow until 2096, but now "the population is projected to peak in the 2050s before decreasing," James Robards, ONS head of household and population projections, said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgpjd2zzl8o

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[firestar464]

More on that by NewsNation:

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/n ... 14k-study/

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